For this reason before any surgical procedure (or procedure with sedation etc.) I designate an advocate (usually the person who will be in the waiting room and will either stay in the hospital with me or drive me home).

Usually this is my mom, a super-nurse, or my husband, a super guy. My family knows if I'm unexpectedly injured, my husband and mom are designated advocates and decision-makers. They've both read my living will, and are aware of my beliefs regarding life support, resuscitation measures, etc.

If an admission or procedure is planned, however, it's much easier to lay out a process for learning your medication dosage and schedule, and tracking whether or not you're being given the correct meds.

As a patient, here's a system that's worked for me.

1.During rounds, I ask the physician to slowly repeat the names of all meds he/she is prescribing.

I repeat this procedure for each doctor on my care team (you may have different meds prescribed by different doctors).

If necessary, ask them to spell it out for you.

If you've had an adverse reaction to a medication the physician mentions in the past, NOW is the time to bring it up. Again. Even if a sensitivity/allergy is well-documented in your chart/plan of care.

Yes, I realize you may look and feel like a bit of a dolt. Yes, I realize docs have far better things to do with their time than spell out medications for me.

They will have far more time to treat other patients if I help prevent the costly complications of a med error.

2. When a nurse enters the room with meds, I ask him/her to please identify each pill (by name) and the strength/dosage.

If the nurse will not or can not identify a med, I can refuse to take it until she/he can do so. Note: You can always refuse a medication/treatment, even if its AMA - in which case the nurse should educate you about the risks of doing so. It's not a light matter to refuse treatment, so think carefully before doing so.

Only once in 3 inpatient hospital stays has a nurse responded to my medication ID request with anger/frustration, replying "it's your pain pill."

Usually the nurse will be extremely helpful, sometimes even offering further explanation, such as "This is Tylenol Number 3 PO - your doctor WhiteCoat has prescribed it for post-op pain every X hours. If you take it now, it will begin to work its way into your system before the physical terrorist gets here."

3. If you're really anal (or have a relative who's a nurse/doc/NP/really nosy at your bedside) you can write down the meds you're given (name, dosage) and the times they're administered.

This is particularly helpful for stepdown periods or other transitions between meds.

If I begin to develop a reaction to a new med for instance, I can refer caregivers to the list and read that I was given XYZ about 45 mins ago, and I noticed onset of symptoms 10 mins ago.

Likewise if you begin to develop breakthru pain, you can maintain a better timeline of which medications are not working for you.

I used this medication schedule at home after discharge as well.

It was very useful in tracking meds, not missing doses, setting alarms for night doses, etc.

We'd also note my pain level on a scale of 0-10 after each dose.

This helped me to step down off pain meds to good old Ibuprofen 24 hours after a bone graft procedure.

I *knew* I was ready because I had the actual data of decreasing pain right there in front of me. For patients who are hesistant to step down, keeping this schedule with corresponding pain measurements may be extremely helpful.

Again, this system worked for me. I don't believe this will work for everyone. I'm not saying it's universally applicable.

But for those of us interested enough in our own care and willing to work with our nurses and docs, who are working very hard to get us well, this is a rough plan of action you may wish to consider.

If I'm someday admitted to a hospital and I don't have to ask, ever, what medications I'm being given because the nurse enters and announces the dosage straight out (after checking my ID verbally and double-checking via my RFID ID bracelet), I'll know the era of e-patients, H2.0, and consumer medicine has finally arrived.

Dandyid

Hugh McLeod's gapingvoid Brilliance

Health Mgmt Rx is a Transparent Blog

Health Management Rx is a one-person gig. There is no paid advertising, no organization 'sponsors' or pays me to post information or feedback, and I don't charge fees for mentions.

The purpose of HMRx is this: to share information of relevance to the healthcare/hospital industry in an op-ed format that sparks discussions among clinicians, constituents, consultants, pundits, and administrative/executive professionals.

In the course of navigating this page, some information collected about users includes country of origin and ISP. This information is available to all viewers by clicking on the "View My Stats" link. Further information about stats collected is available at the Statcounter.com website.

Health Management Rx does not collect personal information such as usernames, email addresses, etc., although you may choose to voluntarily share such information in limited form while posting a comment. If you post a comment, I may choose to share the username posted or blog about the contents of your comment. You may ask me not to do so, or send a comment to me via email. I do not redistribute or sell your information at any time. For any reason.

I am not a clinically licensed healthcare-providing professional (i.e. physician, nurse practitioner, RN). Any opinions posted on the site are just that, and we all know opinions are like a certain anatomical feature - just about everybody's got one.

Please seek any/all medical advice from a qualified physician - no information on this page should be construed as medical advice.

About Me

The Fine Print - Gotta Love Legalese (Herche's Blog Disclaimer)

Views expressed on this blog are solely those of the author and do not constitute nor denote a consultative relationship with readers or entities mentioned. Nothing that I say here is affiliated with my employer. All information herein is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no rights related to useage. Comments posted by others are the express viewpoints of independent authors and are not reviewed for correctness nor accuracy. This blog, as an editorial, reflects an opinion, and as you know, everybody's got one. It should not be construed that information mentioned in this blog is inherently true. Due diligence is express responsibility of the reader. By accessing this website, a web browser (hereafter user) is consents that s/he is familiar with, understands and absolutely accepts the following weblog disclaimer: The views expressed by the authors on this website do not necessarily reflect the views of this website, those who link to this website, the author's mother, father, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, grandparents, cousins, step relations, any other blood relative and the author himself, this website’s web host, template designer, or any other organization, service, motto, logo, insignia or avatar in any way connected with this website. It should also be mentioned that I respect intellectual property laws, and all trademarks, service marks, collective marks, design rights, personality rights, copyrights, registered names, mottos, logos, avatars, insignias and marks used or cited by this website are the property of their respective owners and this website in no way accepts any responsibility for an infringement on one of the above.

The information provided on this website is of a general, broad, sweeping, large, wide-ranging, wide-reaching and wide-spread nature and cannot substitute for the advice of a licensed professional. A competent authority with specialized knowledge is the only one who can address the specific circumstances of your predicament. I can try, but this disclaimer frees us of any liability if negative consequences result.

Please contact your local bar association, law society, neighborhood association of jurists, medical board, county hospital, phone book, online directory, local emergency number in your jurisdiction, mother or Google to find a or obtain a referral to a competent professional.

This website has no control over the information you access via outbound link(s) in the post text, sidebar, header, footer or comment sections. This website does not endorse linked website(s), cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information found by following said links or the correctness of any analysis found therein and should not be held responsible for it or the consequences of a user’s use of that information. If you are curious about the veracity of something you find, please follow the directions in the above paragraph and consult the appropriate experts.

This website publishes content regularly and said content is maintained in reference to the protections afforded it under local, provincial, state, martial, federal, international and mafia law. Publication of information found on this website may be in violation of the laws of the city, county, state, country or other jurisdiction from where you are viewing this website’s content and laws in your jurisdiction may not protect or allow the same kinds of speech or distribution. In the case that the laws of the jurisdiction where this website's content is maintained and those of yours conflict, this website does not encourage, condone, facilitate, recommend or protect the violation of any laws and cannot be responsible for any violations of such laws.

Because the World Wide Web is an integrated net of communication, discussion and litigation, this website encourages the distribution of its content. Cross, reciprocal or just plain friendly hyperlinking is consistent with this information sharing and this disclaimer should not be construed as a condemnation of any linking practices. That said, any reproduction of this website’s content must credit the website by name and Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Should you link to this domain or use, reproduce, republish, regurgitate, repeat, reiterate, rebound, reecho, reverberate, mimic, imitate, parrot or duplicate the information contained on this website, you alone are responsible for that action and should, under threat of litigation, credit this website by name and URL.

If you agree with this, and want to protect yourself and your blog, as well as draw attention to America’s culture of litigation, feel free to post this disclaimer and rid yourself of pesky liability issues. Just be sure to credit Herche’s Blog Disclaimer.